At last! Finger to key again, and here's a bit more of a ramble from this summer's trip - LA to San Francisco...
Having said a tearful farewell to the PAM West conference, I set off about midday up what I was told was the quick route to San Francisco, up the (Highway?) 5. It always feels a little bit odd just calling roads by their numbers, American style , e.g. “Head west on the 66, then north on 187, etc” – It’s a bit like another language, along with place locations, like “at 74th and Main” (eh??), but what sounded like gobbledygook when I first arrived soon came to have meaning for me as I had to navigate my way around. And working out cities on grid plans, which makes a lot of sense when you get the hang of it, but feels a bit odd when you’re used to wiggly streets, and navigating by landmarks, instead of numbers and compass directions.
Anyway, back to the 5 (no prefix) – which I was told was the boring route, but which to a first time California driver was anything but. Driving north out of LA over the hills was a great experience – a really long steady climb up and down again. I wasn’t surprised to see lorries at the side of the road who had overheated on the way up. I was surprised to see then stalled at the side on the way down! Brakes giving out, I suppose….?
Once the hills had passed, it was flat, very flat, and very straight for a long time – Britain ain’t big enough for roads like these! It all became quite hypnotic, especially as it was such a hot day – I could see hills to the west, but they always remained teasingly out of reach, almost like a mirage. I passed through a series of mass agriculture, vegetable by vegetable coming closer to my destination. Until the massed cows came along – escaping the sun under long, straight shelters in their thousands. Beefburgers on legs…
The radio provided a fascinating accompaniment – ranging from Latin American hi-emergy numbers, (which quite wore me out just listening to them), to an extremely scary Christian right wing station, full of self-congratulation, to an extremely interesting free speech radio station, which had to beg for its very life in between reports from the Lebanon etc, trying to offer a counterbalance to the mental fluff of Fox news and the like. And then some more cry your guts out Country music, just for good measure. All of human life on the radio! And a great big eye opener.
I also experienced evangelism by truck, when one drove past me with ‘Jesus Loves You’ mudflaps on… ah, America….
I was extremely worn out when I finally arrived at Heather Mc Tavish’s house (in an absolutely beautiful location near San Fransisco) – luckily she is in possession of the world’s most comfortable bed, and I gladly surrendered myself to its cloudlike depths for an extremely restful night....
